Heritage Boot: On Austin’s SoCo, ‘the best handmade cowboy boots you can buy right now’ with a delightful flavour of the King’s Road heyday
Part artwork, part footwear, entirely authentic
Heritage Boot, Austin TX
A recent visit to Texas provided many joys and pleasures, among them a taste of the heyday of the King’s Road boutique boom courtesy of Jerry and Patti Ryan’s Heritage Boot on Austin’s hip South Congress.
The edge Heritage’s store has over its rivals in the SoCo retail scene is down to Jerry, a transplanted Irishman who has a pedigree stretching back to Westernwear associations in the 1970s with the likes of the late Billy Murphy, of Chelsea’s The Emperor Of Wyoming.
Ryan focused on cowboy boots along the King’s Road at The Common Market, where he ran with such other fashion legends as Trevor Myles, formerly of Paradise Garage who operated Body Shop there, and Kenny MacDonald, whose outlet Marx I have also written about here.
But the Ryans are not stuck in the past. Stocking more than 1000 styles of their own design, Heritage is very much a contemporary concern specialising in footwear produced at their factory in Mexico. In fact, Forbes has complimented the retailer on supplying “the best handmade cowboy boots you can buy right now”.
If you are ever in Austin, make sure you drop by the Ryans’ excellent shop. Meantime visit Heritage Boot’s website here.